Mali, Algeria, South Africa and Mozambique. In just a single week, the continent has offered four painful reminders that Africa, whose story of economic potential could be such a blockbuster, is an equally dramatic place to find that growth.

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France stepped up its ground offensive in Mali, as President François Hollande explained that inaction would leave the country “entirely conquered” by Islamist militants. Few knew the scale of the hostage siege in neighbouring Algeria.

At the opposite end of the continent, in South Africa, Anglo American Platinum’s announcement that it would close mines and cut 14,000 jobs sent shock waves through a country still reeling from violent wildcat strikes by miners in October that left about 50 dead, the country’s reputation as a stable market in question and made the renationalisation of the country’s mines a distant possibility.

In Mozambique, Rio Tinto, one of the biggest and most experienced mining firms in the world, was forced into an “unacceptable” $3bn writedown when the government blocked its plans to move coal via the Zambezi. Doug Ritchie, who oversaw the transaction, resigned and it was a contributing factor in bringing down Rio’s chief executive Tom Albanese.

It is perilous to generalise about Africa. Unlike China or India, to which its growth potential is compared, this is not a country, but a concentration of emerging, frontier and pre-frontier markets. Some are established. Some barely have the rule of law. Some are discovering flourishing industries, some are running out of steam. But its economic story is commonly told in general terms: the richness of natural resources is breathtaking, but fortunes can be found across the board. In the face of dwindling developed-world growth, it is a continent of hyperbolic opportunity.

Booming economies

According to the International Monetary Fund, Africa will host seven of the top 10 fastest-growing economies in the world in the next five years. It already had six of the top 10 fastest-growing economies in the last decade and many African countries have grown at higher rates than those of Asia, according to the IMF.

Renaissance Capital, one of the growth story’s loudest cheerleaders, has published a book, The Fastest Billion, in which chief economist Charlie Robertson asserts that Africa now is where India was in 1991, and that by continuing on its current trajectory, by 2050 Africa will produce more gross domestic product than the US and Europe do today, combined. Combined! Along with that, “its basic social, demographic and political realities will be transformed.”

To take a quick whistle-stop tour: Angola’s economy outpaced China’s between 2001 and 2010. Uganda is preparing to refine its own oil. Huge reserves have been found in Ghana. Kenya is exporting the payment technology M-Pesa. The middle class is growing. The continent is home to 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land at a time when world population is growing and food security a real concern.

But behind the glossy growth story is a more complex reality. There is a surplus of international private capital ready to be invested, but there are structural challenges. Business models and governance often fall far short of western standards. A lack of detailed business plans and transparency hampers due diligence. Corruption renders deals in some markets unpalatable. Capital markets – both debt and equity – are insufficiently deep or liquid to support investments or exits. And governments are prone to suddenly changing the rules. These are obstacles, but not dealbreakers.

The far greater challenge is ensuring Africans share in their continent’s economic growth with employment and education. In a report published in August, entitled Africa at Work, consultancy McKinsey wrote: “Focusing on GDP growth alone will not be enough to transform Africa’s employment landscape… to create better outcomes for workers and economies as a whole, policy makers and business leaders need to work together to accelerate the creation of wage-paying, productive jobs.”

When Ghana found itself host to one of the richest and most prolific carbon provinces in West Africa, there was unrest behind the scenes. The fishing industry – much more important than oil to the majority of Ghanaians’ livelihoods – was suddenly threatened by the rigs and pipelines. Rumours circulated that tribal leaders invited militants from the Niger Delta to advise on methods to redress the balance. As foreigners moved in, rents doubled, and previously well-paid local professionals were evicted. They had seen it all before: their gold mines generated billions of dollars in profits, of which only a tiny percentage came back into domestic coffers. The curse of the extractive industry is a problem across the continent.

Faltering miracles

Africa keeps reminding us that progress can be undone. Ivory Coast was an economic powerhouse in the 1960s and 1970s. While much of the continent faltered, people spoke of the “Ivorian miracle”. But economic stagnation in the 1980s led to a dangerous ethnic polarisation of politics and eventually the country’s first coup in 1999. Ivory Coast has yet to recover. Mali, to which the West Africa Stock Exchange moved when Ivory Coast became too hostile, was believed by most in the west to be on a stable democratic path, yet all that has unravelled. Pliny the Elder’s famed “ex Africa semper aliquid novi” (There is always something new in Africa) should be heeded in modern times.

One investment banker says contagion of discontent is one of the biggest risks in Africa.

The African Development Bank has already cautioned that in spite of a diversifying business mix, Africa’s growth still tends to be concentrated on a limited range of commodities that don’t generate employment opportunities. This is in marked contrast to Asia, where the growth of labour-intensive manufacturing has helped lift millions of people out of poverty.

Running the businesses that will generate supersonic growth will require a dedicated effort to share Africa’s wealth more widely. Without that, social unrest of the scale seen in South Africa, in the Niger Delta or in Ivory Coast could destabilise investments and set back the continent’s economic development.

It will be hard to classify Africa’s growth story as a success if that is allowed to happen.